Writing-from-R'lyeh

Records and Accounts from realms beyond reason and grasp. Documentation of strange encounters, and stories of bizarre days and stranger weeks.

[headspace-hotel]

Common misconceptions surrounding the care of monsters

Contrary to popular belief, it is NOT normal for a Cerberus’s heads to fight with one another; this indicates anxiety or lack of proper enrichment.

Giant spiders are actually very social creatures, and should not be housed alone.

Provide your Sphinx with enrichment by answering its riddles. Though Sphinxes can be trained to attack those who answer incorrectly, they actually normally speak in riddles as a form of social play that is essential to their development and well-being.

If you cannot provide brimstone and a large pool of lava for bathing, don’t purchase a Hellhound! They are animals with very specific care needs and their health will suffer if they are not given the proper habitat. Likewise, most Hellhound kibble brands on the market do not meet the recommended daily requirement of damned souls for Hellhounds. Always check the labels!

The practice of putting blinders over the eyes of Basilisks to make them less dangerous is cruel. Basilisks should not be kept in enclosures where people other than expert caretakers normally come into view.

Many hippocampi enjoy pulling sea chariots, boats or inflatable floats and it can be a good source of enrichment and exercise. Make this activity fun for your hippocampus by rewarding it with treats such as fish and allowing it to participate as it wants to.

A labyrinth is NOT an appropriate habitat for a Minotaur!! Minotaurs need fresh grass and shade to lie down in to be happy. Also, a diet of only human flesh will cause malnutrition. Supplement your Minotaur’s diet of kidnapped youths with a source of fiber, such as hay!

Remember, that hatchling Roc is an adorable fluff ball now, but it will eventually become a fearsome elephant-sized bird of prey with a ravenous appetite and very demanding housing requirements. A pet should always be a well-researched commitment, not an impulsive decision.

While going into the wild and gaining a dragon’s trust is often romanticized, there are many dragons in search of a loving family much closer to home! Try looking into dragon rescue organizations near you.

Some Manticores need to be fed live prey; others, however, will accept prey that has been frozen and thawed. It depends on the individual.

Even smaller species of griffin need a lot of space. Domestic rock-griffins, though only the size of a cat, need room to fly and to build large nests. If you live in an apartment, it is better to adopt one of the smallest species, such as one of many types of song-griffins! Humming-griffins, however, though you may have seen cute videos on Instagram, should be avoided because they are not domesticated and their wild populations are endangered by the pet trade. It is best to admire their iridescent feathers in visits to accredited conservation organizations!

[shavingangrypirates]

@spiritspodcast

[thestalkerbunny]

Times are troubling and hard right now-but never forget, your Beet loving Grandmother loves you very very much and wants you to be safe.

And for you to eat your vegetables.

[insomniac-arrest]

I don’t think anime vs western animation are as different as people claim due to the fact they have inspired and fed off each other for decades (they’re friends!!), however I do think our environmental messages to kids are… significantly and interestingly different

whereas, say Ghibli films express a deep Shinto-based respect and reverence for nature:

fighting for it as a means of both self-preservation and expression of heroism revolving around justice

and a matter of other groups of humans (the government often) going up against the stalwart youth

This is contrasted to western animation which tends to be like…. hey! look at this funny bat! And pollution is an evil spirit you can fight like physically 

that isn’t to say the west doesn’t depict environmentalism as heroic and even involving collective action, Captain Planet is a good example of this

but individualism is still very present, the struggle is stalwart youths versus an individual or individual corporation, hell, sometimes you even get a sympathetic backstory for the corporation and weirdly cool rock song

to be clear, antagonists like Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke are sympathetic too, but it is… different, Lady Eboshi is trying to survive due to circumstances but it is all of Irontown that represents a system of corruption

In comparison, there is this western idea of corruption coming from individuals rather than systems as well as the fact they aren’t trying to save nature because we are part of it, but because nature itself is a person and thus worthy of respect

In Fern Gully the fairy’s represent nature, the Lorax represents nature, Captain Planet is literally just nature, all things we can talk to and relate to, where in Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa the ultimate nature spirits are something you can’t talk to and are frankly terrifying, awe-inspiring, and mighty

Western epistemology is heavily rooted in Christianity which says that man has dominion over fish of the sea, fowl of the air, and creatures of the land, ect, which leads to a utilitarian and separate view of nature– what can it do for us as separate (higher) beings, and the only way to combat this view is to say “actually nature is a person and thus worthy of protection”

Whereas Japanese Shintoism has much more emphasis on the idea that we are all part of a whole with nature, nature is the ultimate divine with nothing more important than the other, and something worthy of protection not because we can understand it, but because we can’t

“It’s a mistake to think about nature from the idea of efficiency, that forests should be preserved because they are essential to human beings”– Hayao Miyazaki

this is not to completely bash western animation, it does have other strengths such as emphasizing children’s relationship to empathy, empathy toward others in “Toy Story” and empathy toward themselves in “Inside Out” as well as is leaps and bounds ahead of anime in terms of queer representation in kids media

However, our methods of conveying environmentalism could use some updating and steering away from “goofy” and “relatable” and maybe a little more terror and awe involved with fighting the good fight

[razzleberryjam]

100% western films about environmentalism always feel like you’re learning a lesson, where as ghibli films show you a beautiful thing and imbibes into you the idea that its worth protecting.

Western animation tells you to care about the environment,

Eastern animation shows you the environment and everything thats worth protecting, and so you just do

[blackrabbitillustrations]

Shelfie

Just a silly little comic idea before bed the other night. It was brought to my attention that I haven’t been doing as much original work as I used to so I’m trying to rectify that. 

Redbubble // Instagram // Youtube

[elcomics]

Hi friends,

This is our new story FERTILE. We hope you enjoy it!

We’ve just released a new digital comic book, containing 3 new stories. Get it here: gum.co/lightsgoout

If you would like to support us creating more comics like this one, please consider buying a copy. However we know times are hard, so if you can’t, please download the book for free.

Thank you! Ehud and Yael

[callmebliss]

HECK

[deluxeloy]

Human: Deal.

Fey: Very well. When you return home tonight, your mother will be in pristine health again. It will be like she never fell ill at all. Even the memory of her suffering will fade…

Human: Thank you so much. She means everything to me.

Fey: I know, I know. Let’s hope the price wasn’t too much for you after all… Only time will tell.

Human: So, when do we start?

Fey: …If I may ask you to elaborate?

Human: You said you wanted my firstborn.

Fey: Yes? And you agreed?

Human: Yeah, so, when do we start?

Fey:

Fey, blushing: Ah.

[hayleyolivia]

So good. It deserved a some art.

[dateagirlwhosweird]

date a selkie, but don’t hide her cloak. let her go home and visit her family now and then, knowing that she’ll come back and hang her seal cloak in the closet like she always does. trust is important.

[lustfulpasiphae]

The first time she lets the redhead take her home, she’s diligent about hiding her cloak. She folds it carefully against tears and rips and abrasions, and hides it in a sea cave whose entrance is concealed by the tide.

She does the same, the second and third and fourth times, careful, wary, mindful of her mother’s lessons. Remembers the way her mother’s hands had chafed on her soft cheeks, rough with cooking and cleaning for her fisherman husband, the way her mother’s peat-dark eyes had been tense and harsh with the lesson.

“Mind me, Niahm. Never let them find your cloak.”

The way her mother’s mouth had curved, a sickle of dissatisfaction and relief and envy, as she had escaped into the waves.

So she minds her mother’s lesson, and she takes care with her cloak.

Would that she had taken as much care with her heart.

The fifth time, she wears the cloak to the girl’s door, clutched about her throat, dripping along the darkened lanes.

She enters the home, welcomed with soft kisses and gentle touches and kindling passion. She drapes the cloak, artful in her carelessness, across an old wooden chair, the one that creaks and tilts slightly if you don’t sit just right.

When she wakes, in the wee hours of the morning, even before her lover, the cloak still rests, supple and dappled by the sea, on the back of the chair.

She frowns into the softening dawn, dons the cloak, and returns to the sea.

And again, the sixth time. And the seventh.

The eighth time, she finally breaks, prickling and hurt with longing, gripping a handful of russet hair in her hand, firm with emphasis.

“Surely you know what I am,” she says to her lover, the cool froth of sea foam and the call of gulls curling around her voice.

“Of course,” her lover responds, soft and tender in the dawnlight, throat arched willingly, pale as the inner whorls of a shell. “You taste of the sea,” the girl whispers, reverently.

She shakes her lover’s head gently, fingers tangled still in russet locks. “Why?” she demands. “Why won’t you keep me?”

A long silence that waits and fills, like a tidepool, stretches between them. Cool as a current. Deep as the Channel.

Her lover’s eyes are dark and tender. “Must I trap you to keep you, my heart? Is that the shape of love that you desire?”

She sinks into the thought, struck and stymied, remembering her mother’s harsh hands, her cold eyes. Her hand eases into russet waves, caresses where her grip had punished. Her lips press cool and damp as the sea against the arching curve of her lover’s shoulder. “What shape of love will you give to me?”

The answer is easy, quick, certain. “Myself. Only myself, whenever you should wish it. Your cloak by the door, your body in my bed, and the freedom to go, whenever you must. As long as you wish.”

It’s not an answer a fisherman could ever give, nor would think to.

The ninth time, she hangs her cloak by the door, draped in careful dappled folds next to a drying oilskin jacket.

[millennial-review-deactivated20]

[nattousan]

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE 

[flour-canon]

Free worldbuilding idea:

Wizards have the same trust in magic that software designers have in software, which is to say, almost none at all.

“Are you fucking kidding me I worked in a reagrent shop for a few years I don’t trust any of that stuff. Who the hell knows what other components are in the ashes.”

“Yeah I was in the circle that made Alston’s Divine Circle of Teleportation. There’s some pretty nasty corner cases you can get into but the headmaster published it without us. I just take ships. It’s way safer.”

“I call bullshit on that Necromancer channeling spirits of loved ones. What did he say he was using? ‘Medium Conduit Ruinic Circles’? That’s just a bunch of buzzwords slapped together, and they don’t even interact with each other.”

“I’ve been looking at this scroll all morning and I’m 90% sure that the scribe didn’t even look at the standard for pyromancies.”

[digitaldiscipline]

“Help Desk, this is Gloriline, what did you fuck up this time?” *indistinct vocals* “Dave, I’ve seen the news, and, frankly, I can see the ash cloud from here. You paid for extended support, not enabling support.”

[void-writing]

“I can’t get this fucking spell to work, Jane, can you look it?”

*passes a scroll* *a few moments of silence*

“I think you missed a bookend rune right here-”

“GODS DAMN IT! IT’S ALWAYS SHIT LIKE THAT! THANK YOU!” *angrily scribbles on parchment*

(It takes five more aggravatingly tiny adjustments before the spell works)

[crazy-pages]

I don’t play wizards anymore because they’re too much like my day job.

[drackir]

Instead of a orb the wizard has a little statue of a duck he tells his spells to and then swears when he spots the obvious mistake.

[ronnanlynnch]

RPGs, or relentlessly persistent girls by cassandrha

[youlookshittygoodnightdenise]

This concept is really interesting

[zombie-poets-society]

This really makes me rethink the characters decisions. Usually these women are depicted as stupid, vain, or selfish. But I sympathize with them way more when their options written this way

[alexunlawful-deactivated2024022]

Yamask’s Revenge

Twitter | Patreon Relevant dex entries:

Previously: Sad Litwick & Phantump comic 

[eldritch-sanctum]

I hope somewhere in Pokemon canon its addressed about how there the line between human and pokemon can sometimes be thin, such as when it comes to ghost pokemon.  And the implications of such.

[amazonpoodle]

also seriously if a character isn’t white, i promise your only descriptive options aren’t food words and varying degrees of tan. it’s okay to say brown. pale brown! light brown! golden brown! medium brown! dark brown! deep brown! so many kinds of brown!

BROWN BROWN BROWN BROWN BROWN

[laffbending]

#brown is not a bad word #you do not need euphemisms #B R O W N

[lgbtqiafeminism]

This post by writingwithcolor might help in picking good words to use plus reading about why not to use food words! In general if you’re writing a character of color I highly recommend @writingwithcolor

[cukibola-deactivated20200917]

Thank you!

[imagineagreatadventure]

I just thought this set of tweets was really important.

[nevver]

The Muse’s Revenge, Ilya Milstein

[colombianomarica]

[portabellogna]

So I’m just going to leave this picture of an old Pablo Picasso here for reference.

[kingohats]

#I recognized the reference but had assumed it was more of a general influence however they used the same molding and everything#I’m sure it’s supposed to be more of a general statement rather than being about any one artist and I’m sad there’s no caption on her site#but Picasso was certainly one of Those Artist Dudes#which is to say he was an abusive douchebag to most of the women in his life (x)

[silmarillion-separatism]

What goes around comes around

[haroldtheyrewuhluhwuh]

@captainsuperlesbian

[mimiadraws]

Woohoo!! 🏁💖 Here’s the comic I made for @gameon-anthology– help us unlock the next stretch goal by backing the project here! I’m so glad I got to contribute a piece to this anthology and be featured among so many insanely talented artists, be sure to support the kickstarter campaign and grab a copy for yourself!

[melgillman]

Here’s HSTHETE, the 24 hour comic I drew this year!  Thanks to everybody who followed along on twitter this weekend as I posted these pages <3

[tokimekiwaku]

I was a part of Calamity Girl, A Cowgirl Art Book! I submitted this comic to them and I quite liked it! You can still preorder the book till February 21st! lots of great guests and profits go to charity!